Sandbox III: Revenge of the Sandbox

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SCP Sandbox

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Special Containment Procedures: Revised as of Incident XXXX. SCP-XXXX is to be contained in a locked, hermetically-sealed storage container, constructed of titanium no less than 1 foot thick. The container must be able to withstand, without damage, up to 16,000 psi worth of external pressure, and be completely watertight under all circumstances. SCP-XXXX's storage container must have three locks: one retinal scanner tuned to at least one member of O5 Command, one electronic keycard lock requiring at least Site Director approval, and one physical lock with no key. If the container must be opened for any reason, a key must be created for the lock; afterwards, the lock must be replaced and the key for the old lock melted down completely.

No water may be handled within 20 feet of SCP-XXXX at any time except during testing. Testing of SCP-XXXX is forbidden without unanimous approval from O5 Command as of Incident XXXX.

Archived Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is to be kept in a locked, watertight storage container. Testing involving SCP-XXXX may only be performed with approval from the Site Director, and no water may be handled within 20 feet of SCP-XXXX at any time except during testing.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a collection of cubes, combined length one inch, resembling eight pieces of fused sodium chloride. The object has no scent or taste; visual inspection reveals no discrepancy between it and non-anomalous salt cubes and its texture does not differ from them. SCP-XXXX weighs exactly three ounces. Despite this, SCP-XXXX has been shown to rapidly sink in any volume of water, descending at a rate of one foot per second in the water until it reaches a solid surface.

Chemical analysis of SCP-XXXX has revealed that the cube has anomalously high physical properties. The density of SCP-XXXX is comparable to a singularity, and is measurable at a functionally infinite density of salt. How this density is maintainable at its current level without the formation of a black hole is uncertain, as is how the object's other physical properties such as weight maintain their present values in spite of its density.

SCP-XXXX appears to be immune to damage through conventional sources, including ballistics, incendiaries, and explosives. Testing has also shown that individual cubes cannot be detached through any currently-known means.

SCP-XXXX's primary anomalous property manifests when it enters any volume of fresh water. While partially submerged, SCP-XXXX behaves as a normal salt cube, salinating the water as could be reasonably expected from a cube of its size, albeit without losing any mass or surface area. However, when the object is completely submerged, the entire body of fresh water, regardless of size, becomes instantly salinated to a concentration of roughly 35 g/kg. Extensive testing has revealed no upper bound on the amount of water SCP-XXXX may salinate at once.

DOES THE BLACK MOON HOWL?
> Only on Moondays!
IDENTIFICATION SUCCESSFUL. THIS ACCESS HAS BEEN LOGGED.

On January 3, 2007, SCP-XXXX, along with several other Safe-class objects, were undergoing transport by train to Site-73 from temporary holding facilities along the South coast. During a bridge crossing in Louisiana, explosive charges attached to the bottom of the bridge later determined to have been placed by the Group of Interest known as the Chaos Insurgency were simultaneously detonated, causing complete structural failure in the bridge and resulting in three train cars collapsing into the Seas. One such train car contained SCP-XXXX, and upon impact, its containment failed, resulting in its container flooding with fresh water.

As soon as the container was flooded, the entirety of the Seven Seas, as well as any rivers and bodies of water in some way connected to them, were salinated to 35 g/kg as per SCP-XXXX's primary anomalous effect. The net result of this was a world-scale ecological upheaval that, were it not for the adaptability of Earth's wildlife, would have resulted in an eventual GH-0 "Dead Greenhouse" scenario due to complete disruption of the global ecosystem.

Immediately after containment of the object was compromised, all active Foundation facilities began work on restoring marine life on Earth. It was discovered that the majority of aquatic life in the main Seas were able to tolerate the salinity, but had vastly reduced life spans as a result; for instance, the species Pterois volitans1, formerly well-known for its average life of a full century, now had a lifespan of only fifteen years. Many other animals, however, were unable to live in the new conditions, and mass extinctions occurred; two dozen species of the order Crocodilia were wiped out entirely, including the freshwater Anglodile.

In collaboration with the United States government, within two weeks, the Foundation had stabilized what life remained, using experimental genetic therapy to allow tolerance in many species that could not survive in salt water and relocating others to landlocked bodies of fresh water that had not been affected by the event. When it had been ascertained that the global ecosystem was no longer on the verge of collapse, the Foundation began searching for a way to reverse the effects of SCP-XXXX, but such countermeasures were quickly deemed impossible due to the sheer volume of water present on Earth.

Once it was decided that reversal of the object's effects was impossible, the Foundation began a global-scale expunging of the event. Rather than attempt to erase the existence of the Seven Seas from history - an impossible effort, given the age and scale of human civilization - they were simply modified in most conventional histories. Ennui protocol was unanimously approved, and enacted the following day. As the protocol began to take effect, social cues and rules were implanted in societies suggesting that "Seven Seas" was simply an archaic way of describing the bodies of water.

To explain the decreased health and lifespans of creatures living in the former Seas, several false ecological disasters were orchestrated, such as high-profile oil spills across the East Coast. Large amounts of funding were provided anonymously to environmental activist groups, and as a result, global concern of pollution began to rise. Simultaneously, previously-strict regulations on waste disposal were lifted, allowing the groups' arguments to have a basis due to the vast majority of plants, factories, and mills opting to dispose of their waste into the Seas to save operation costs.

Within three years, global society had returned to normal, albeit with increasing concerns over the Seas' pollution. As the name "Seven Seas" had been ostracized as archaic, the new "modern" aliases were put into effect. The former North and South Atlantic Seas were combined into the Atlantic Ocean, and the North and South Pacific Seas were combined into the Pacific Ocean. The Indian Sea, Arctic Sea, and Southern Sea retained the former half of their original names, instead simply being renamed as oceans instead of seas.

If you haven't already been cleared on what exactly the oceans are, then you've probably got a hell of a lot of questions. This addendum serves as some semblance of a way to answer most of them.

Here's the short version: the oceans weren't always oceans. Up until very recently in Earth's life, they were known as the Seas, and they were primarily freshwater. There was a little bit of salt water there, but infinitesimally small compared to what we have now. The stuff was safe to drink. Chances are, if you served in one of the World Wars, you probably stuffed your canteen full of seawater. Ever wonder why all the water crises didn't happen until recently? That's because until the little salt cube got blown into the ocean by the CI, we never had one. That's also why people respected the regulations so much; you don't want to dump toxic waste into the thing everyone drinks out of. Anyone who tried got smashed by the UN quickly and mercilessly.

That day in 2007 was the closest thing to a broken masquerade we've ever had next to Star Signals. In fact, until we enacted Ennui, it was a broken masquerade. Thankfully, for this one, we had all the wildlife on Earth on our side. Of course, a few minutes after it happened, everyone knew. Every single scientific instrument in the ocean picked it up, and obviously within half an hour it was all over the news. There wasn't exactly rioting in the streets, but there was a lot of paranoia. Of course there was; a fundamental fact of the world has changed in the literal blink of an eye. The Foundation is expansive, but it's not omnipotent. We had to at least partially break our secrecy to keep some semblance of order, and it's why you still see little tics and hints that point towards us, but that nobody would ever recognize.

Of course, people were happy to help. The amount of volunteers we had was frankly staggering. For a minute, we almost thought the human race was good again. Marine biologists, scuba divers, geologists, even untrained civilians; they were practically lining up at the doors to do what they could to help. A good few of the reasons we were able to keep most of the fish on Earth from going extinct is because of scientists that came in from civilian institutions. Some of them are still with us today as researchers, scientists, even directors.

After a lot of hard work and frustration, and news outlets combing everywhere they could to find new things, we decided to enact Ennui. It wasn't exactly popular in the ranks, but we all agreed it had to happen. When every single eye on the planet is looking at the seas, it was only a matter of time until they found 169 or one of the other horrible things we know are lurking at the bottom of some chasm or another.

As much as it'd be nice to claim the Foundation did all the work, the truth is that the human race still exists because we got lucky. Back when they were the Seas, we put a lot less trash in them, but we still put trash in them. The animals that swam around in all the crap we pumped around them had a way of adapting to things, and the small amount of salinity in the water helped a lot. When it all instantly became saltwater, the majority of them kept on living, although their lives were much shorter and a lot less comfortable. Some of them have evolved to stay alive since then. It probably sounds insane to say that the blowholes that whales and dolphins have were purely cosmetic until around a decade ago, and you'd be right to think that, because it is insane, but it's the truth. As it turns out, when you arm the most brilliant minds of an era with cutting-edge genetic therapy, they can do a lot. Quite a lot, in fact, in a very short timespan.

On top of that, the Ennui was much more effective than we thought it'd be. Very much so, in fact. We figured that we would have missed something in the records and books we changed, and you'd be right. We missed a hell of a lot. But we played it safe, and didn't try to clean history, just to give it some more paint. 1425 taught us a few things, and one of them was a careful touch when fiddling with history. The Seven Seas doesn't hold the meaning it once did, but it still holds the point, and even if someone was missed by it and went around trying to convince everyone that the oceans were once the Seven Seas, they wouldn't get anywhere - because everyone knows they were. As it turns out, people are willing to suspend their disbelief quite a bit to maintain the illusion that the world is orderly and just. The Foundation wouldn't exist without that disbelief, and it still holds true today.

That's about it. If you have any questions, keep them to yourself. We've had enough people try to spread this around to their coworkers that we have a list of people we bet on to see who tries it next. Just remember that death row doesn't have enough people in it to fill the slots we need annually for D-Class. Don't disseminate. If you have to, take amnestics as soon as you finish reading this. The fact that you have the clearance to read this means that it goes without saying that you should know that this is one of the most sensitive secrets in the modern era. Forget that, and you might find your coat swapped out for something a little more orange.